MackCollier.com

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How to Add Google +1 Button to Your WordPress Blog and Track Social Media Engagement With Google Analytics

Now that everyone is rushing to get into Google Plus, you are going to see a lot more sites and blogs adding the +1 button.  I added it here last week, and the process is easy as pie.  It’s done via a plugin, here is the page for the one I used.  You can either go to that page and download the plugin then upload it manually, or go to the Plugins area of your WordPress dashboard, and search for it Google +1 Button and that should bring it up.  Pretty sure this is for WordPress.org only.

Something else that got kinda lost in the shuffle with everyone rushing to get onto Plus was that Google Analytics is now tracking social media engagement levels!  If you are already set up with a Google Analytics account, you’ll need to make sure you are using the New version, look at the top of your screen and there should be a link to Switch to the New Version.  You want to click that, because the new version of GA has some extra functionality, including measuring social media engagement.

When you get in, then click Visitors, and you’ll see a few new options, including Social.  When you click it, then you’ll see options to track Engagement, Action and Pages.  Now if you have installed the Google +1 plugin above, then GA will automagically start showing you how many clicks your Google +1 buttons are getting, how many page views, time spent on site, etc.  When you click on Engagement, it will show you your traffic for the last month, then the amount of traffic that was Not Socially Engaged, and Socially Engaged.  Here’s a screenshot of what mine looks like now:

Yeah I know, nothing to write home about yet 😉  But as I get a lot more data in, I can see how the usage of people that click the Google +1 button compares to other site users.  And the great thing about this report is that it can also track engagement levels with Tweets, Facebook Likes, Facebook Shares, and I believe even when posts are Stumbled!  The bad news is, that can’t be done via a plugin (yet), those can only be added via coding that I do NOT want to touch yet.  If you are adventureous, here’s some tutorials on how you can add this functionality.  I did note that Google is asking plugin developers to start updating their plugins so that it will add tracking functionality automagically, similar to how the Google +1 Button works.  So my guess is that these plugins that we are now using to add ReTweet and Facebook Like buttons to our blogs will soon offer this, so I’m going to wait a bit before I try to add it myself and break my blog 😉

So there you go!  If you were wanting to add Google +1 buttons to your blog, the above plugin will do it for you, then once you have it installed, you can start tracking how many clicks you’re getting and other forms of engagement with the new version of Google Analytics.  Let me know what you think!

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#Blogchat this Sunday will be co-hosted by Dell’s Chief Blogger Lionel Menchaca!

Lionel being interviewed at #Blogchat LIVE at SXSW as Chris Heuer and Susan Beebe look on

I’m not sure how long the list is of people that have been blogging for the same company for FIVE years, but I’m guessing it’s pretty damn short.  But Lionel Menchaca is on it, and for the last five years, he has served as Dell’s Chief Blogger.  And this Sunday, he’ll also be returning to co-host #Blogchat for the second time!

Dell’s social media transformation has been nothing short of remarkable, from Dell Hell and exploding laptops in 2005 and 2006, to today being lauded for its progressive approach to using social media to connect with its customers.

And for the last 5 years, Dell’s blogging efforts have been at the forefront of its social media success, and I’m tickled pink that Lionel has agreed to join us at #Blogchat this Sunday!

Sunday’s #Blogchat topic will be How to Create and Maintain a Successful Corporate Blogging Strategy.  As we normally do with co-hosts, the flow of the conversation will be segmented into different sub-topics:

1 – At 8pm Central, we will begin #Blogchat by discussing this point – How do you sustain a blogging strategy for years, and how do you keep the blog relevant with your readers and customers?

2 – At 8:20pm, we’ll begin discussing this point – How do you find writers for your blog, and how do you keep them motivated to keep blogging for you?

3 – At 8:40pm, we’ll close by discussing this point – How do you create relevant content for your blog and how do you decide what content your readers are interested in?

So if you have any questions for Lionel, think about which of the above areas would be most appropriate, and please ask it then.  This #Blogchat will be sponsored by Dell, and that leads me to another surprise for y’all:

In a couple of weeks I will be in Austin working with Dell on a #DellCAP project (disc – Dell is a client).  But while I’m in town, we decided to do a LIVE #Blogchat! The Live #Blogchat will be Monday, July the 18th at the Westin Domain, with the meetup starting at 6pm, the actual #Blogchat will start at 7pm.  I will set up a signup page soon, and when I have that I’ll add a link here.  The event will be open to #DellCAP attendees plus about 30 people from the Austin area.  So I can’t wait to see all my Austin friends again!

So if you’ll be joining #Blogchat on Sunday, make SURE you are following Lionel on Twitter, and you can also check out Dell’s main blog, Direct2Dell.

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I am officially a social media packrat

And two events clearly illustrated this for me yesterday:

1 – I went to ManageFlitter.com to see how many people I am following that aren’t following me.  I was following almost 3,000 people that were NOT following me.  This really worried me because the main reason I use Twitter is as a way to connect with others and have conversations with them.  By following those 3,000 people that have no interest in seeing my tweets, it’s making it far more difficult for me to connect with the people that DO want to chat with me.  I don’t like that.

2 – I have about 600 people in my Circles in Google Plus.  I started looking at the people I have in my circles and realized that half of them I didn’t have the faintest idea who they were.  I’ve already lost control of my network on Plus after less than a week!

One of the things I have constantly wrestled with was how to scale as the size of my networks grow on these social media sites.  I have always been really strict about who I follow on Facebook, and even now I only have about 600 friends and have been there about 3 years.  But on Twitter I follow over 16K people.  I’ve always wondered in a rush to expand our networks, if we aren’t really stifling our ability to actually connect with people.

So I’ve decided to do a bit of an experiment.  On Plus I am going to be super-picky who I follow, and only follow people that are close friends and/or people I know and have met in real life.  Complete contrast to how I manage followers on Twitter.

The idea is to test two different approaches: Is it better to try to have mostly platonic connections with thousands of people like I do on Twitter (with the hope that some might develop into deeper connections), or have deeper connections with only a few people, and let your network grow only by bringing in closer connections, like I have on Plus.

Man this social media stuff can get complicated!  How do y’all manage your online networks?  Do you have different approaches for different sites?  Am really fascinated in how we scale (or attempt to scale!) our ability to communicate online.

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Should Your Business Be On Google Plus? Here’s the Quick and Easy Way to Decide

If you actively use social media, then you’ve probably seen a lot of people chattering about Google Plus over the last week or so.  A ton of invites went out, and a lot of people got their first look at Google’s newest social networking site.  After playing around with it for a few days, I can definitely see why a lot of Facebook users may want to migrate over.

However, does this mean that YOUR BUSINESS should be on Google Plus?  As always, there are two basic questions you need to ask yourself in order to decide:

1 – Will being on Google Plus help me better connect with my customers?

2 – Will being on Google Plus help my employees better connect with each other?

Those are the two main questions you need to ask.  If you can’t answer a ‘yes’ to either of those questions, then your business probably shouldn’t make the jump to Google Plus.  At least not yet.

You should also remember that the current buzz around Google Plus is being driven almost entirely by social media early adopters.  We are the geeky types that always want to try out the newest and the shiniest.  Remember a few months ago when you were suddenly hearing all this buzz about Quora and Empire Avenue?  Yep, that was us as well.

Now this is NOT to say that you should dismiss Google Plus.  I think you should absolutely familiarize yourself with the site and the available functionality.  For one, the ability to do Hangouts would be a great way for employees to connect, especially if they are working virtually.  And you need to understand that this product is NOT available to everyone.  Because it still has a lot of bugs that are being worked out, and new functionality will be implemented.  And we still aren’t sure exactly what impact content created there will have on search results.  There’s still a lot that’s up in the air at this point on many fronts.

So don’t think you need to do a cannonball into Google Plus just yet.  My advice would be to read up on the site and what it offers users, then when you get an invite, play with it a bit and see what you think.  I will be doing a more in-depth review of Plus once I’ve spent enough time with it to better understand what it offers.

If you are using Google Plus now, what potential impact do you see for businesses there?

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#Blogchat topic for 7-3: How to create useful content for your biz blog without ‘giving it all away’

Hey y’all!  Hope everyone is getting ready for a festive Fourth of July!  Since tomorrow is the holiday, and not tonight, we’ll go ahead and have #Blogchat tonight (Sunday) at its regularly scheduled time of 8pm Central.

And our topic will focus on creating content for business blogs, and how ‘helpful’ our content should be.  Someone asked a question during last week’s #Blogchat about how you promote yourself via your blog, especially if you are a consultant or working for yourself.  My quick answer was ‘Give away the WHY, sell the HOW’, but I thought that would be a good topic to expand upon tonight.  I think there are two schools of thought here:

1 – Create content that establishes the need for hiring me (Why), and then use the content to get business (Where you teach the how).

2 – Create content that gives away the How, and hope that the content is so amazingly useful that it leads to positive word of mouth, and that leads to referrals.

I think you also need to consider what type of customer/client you want, when you position your content.  For example, if I wanted someone to hire me to setup their business blog, I would probably create more content devoted to WHY they need a blog to build their business.  On the other hand, if I wanted to connect with clients that are already blogging that need help building engagement, I would probably create more content around the HOW, because I want to establish my expertise in building engagement and community.

I think this will be a very interesting discussion as those of us that use our blogs to drive business often struggle with the proper balance in our content.  How much do we promote, versus teach?

So please do join us tonight for #Blogchat at 8pm Central!

Oh! And I promised a very small surprise, didn’t I?  As many of you remember, we were using WTHashtag to create transcripts after each #Blogchat up till a few months ago, when WTHasthag had to stop offering that functionality due to a change in Twitter’s TOS.  But, before it shut down, I was able to convert over a year’s worth of #Blogchats into PDF transcripts!  I’ll be sharing a few of these every week for the next several weeks, so you can use these as additional study materials.  Here’s this week’s transcripts:

7-26-09 – Topic: How to Get Sales and Business Leads From Your Blog (Co-Hosted by Amy Africa) – #Blogchat07-26-09TranscriptWAmyAfrica

7-12-09 – Topic: Finding the ROI of your Blogging and Social Media Efforts (Co-Hosted by KD Paine) – #Blogchat07-12-09TranscriptWKDPaine

7-19-09 – Topic: How Non-Profits Can Use Social Media (Co-Hosted by the Red Cross’ Wendy Harman) – #Blogchat07-19-09TranscriptWWendyHarman

Just click on the link for each, and then you can view them, and download if you like.  Enjoy!

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My Very First Blog Post

From 2005-2007, I wrote for an advertising group blog called Beyond Madison Avenue.  The blog is still around, but over the years it has been redesigned several times and somehow in all the shuffling, it seems that all the posts written from those early years were lost.  I did some digging and found a few of  them, so what I wanted to do is share a new one of them with you each Saturday here over the next few weeks.  I honestly (sadly?) think these posts are better than most of the ones I write now, and on top of that, I think they are an interesting commentary on a space that’s gone through a ton of change in just a few short years.  I hope you enjoy these, and we’ll start with the very first blog post I ever wrote, from September 20th, 2005.

What a Hurricane Can Teach Us About Marketing

1 billion and counting.

That’s the current amount of donations received for victims of Hurricane Katrina, according to an article in yesterday’s Washington Post. That total doesn’t include donations from last night’s episode of Monday Night Football, during which current and former NFL players took donations for the relief effort. Some estimates have the final total approaching 2 billion. Granted, roughly half of the donations thus far are from corporations.

Still, that means over 500 million has been donated from everyday Americans in the three weeks since Katrina made landfall in Gulfport, Mississippi. When’s the last time a company released a new product to the market that had similar sales, with NO advertising?

Then again, this is a rare case where little advertising is necessary. The appeal is easy to understand: Compassion for our fellow man. The benefit of the donations is obvious: Helping fellow Americans rebuild their communities, homes, and lives.  Marketing professionals everywhere can learn much from the massive giving that’s coming in response to Katrina. If you have a product that people want, that they can clearly see the benefits of, and that fulfills a basic human need, it will sell itself.

What ‘product’ is being sold here? Hope. We all need some of that.


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#Blogchat LIVE is coming to Content Marketing World!

UPDATE: Thanks to ON24 for being the official sponsor of the Live #Blogchat at Content Marketing World!

That’s right! I have been waiting TWO FREAKING MONTHS to share this news, but in September #Blogchat LIVE will be part of this year’s Content Marketing World!  You read that right, #Blogchat LIVE is coming to THE Content Marketing event of the year and will be kicking off the event on September the 6th!  And have you SEEN the speaker lineup for CMW?!?

David Meerman Scott, Jay Baer, Ann Handley, C.C. Chapman, Brian Clark (CopyBlogger), Jason Falls, Jim Kukral, Lee Odden and Shelley Ryan PLUS Joe Pulizzi, Mike Stelzner, the New York Times’ David Pogue, and Kevin Smith.  Yes, THAT Kevin Smith.  Over 50 of the smartest minds in content marketing.

Now THAT is some heady company! One of the biggest marketing events of the year, an all-star speaker lineup, and guys it’s #Blogchat LIVE during Content Marketing World!  Is there ANY way this could be more amazing?!?

Guys it’s not just #Blogchat LIVE….

It’s not just #Blogchat LIVE during Content Marketing World…..

It’s #Blogchat LIVE during Content Marketing World AT THE FREAKING ROCK N ROLL HALL OF FAME!!!!!

Yes you read that right.  We are actually going to have a LIVE #Blogchat at the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame.  Yes, I am literally giddy to be telling you this 😉

So the BIG question is how can YOU join us?  First, only attendees of Content Marketing World will be allowed to attend the LIVE #Blogchat at the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame (yes I love saying that!).  And space will be limited (literally), so the total attendance of the LIVE #Blogchat will be capped, but you MUST register for Content Marketing World to be eligible to attend the Live #Blogchat.  And if you haven’t already checked the agenda, it’s absolutely killer.  And I’ve been told Content Marketing World likely WILL sellout, so please get in as soon as you can in order to be eligible to attend the LIVE #Blogchat! Seriously if you can only attend one event for the rest of the year that focuses on content marketing and social media, this is exactly where you want to be.

To make it easy on you, here’s the complete conference agenda in PDF form.

And guys when you register make sure you use code BLOGCHAT to get an extra $100 off the price!

Now, if you are interested in being a SPONSOR of this LIVE #Blogchat during Content Marketing World at the freaking Rock N Roll Hall of Fame (have I mentioned that part?), then please contact Pam on Twitter, or email Pam or email me.  She’ll be happy to work with you to design a sponsorship package that works for you.  And as you can tell, I am far too excited about LIVE #Blogchat and will have zero problem promoting it and your sponsorship of it 😉

The format of this LIVE #Blogchat will be similar to our past events, in that we’ll have an hour of meetup/tweetup (probably 7pm), then start the actual LIVE #Blogchat at around 8pm.  If you’ve never attended a LIVE #Blogchat, here’s the recap of the one we did at South By Southwest, and here’s the recap of the one held at the Marketing Profs B2B Forum.  Attendees at both LIVE #Blogchat afterward told me it was one of if not THE highlight of their trip.  In Boston at the B2B Forum, attendees were asking me beforehand ‘So what is a LIVE #Blogchat like?’, and I told them ‘Just like the #Blogchats on Twitter!’  Afterward they each told me ‘You were right, it was just like it is on Twitter!’

So now do y’all see why I have been gushing endlessly about this on Twitter? 😉

PS: I can never thank #Blogchat enough for being the amazing community that has grown to the point where we can have a LIVE #Blogchat at the freaking Rock N Roll Hall of Fame. I love y’all and hope to see as many of you as possible there.

Pic via Flickr user jcburns

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The key feature that neither Google+ or Facebook really addresses

So like many of you, I finally got a Google+ invite, and plan on kicking the tires a bit over the next few days.  But as I was quickly scanning the features, and reading great previews like this one, I was looking for a specific feature.

I want the ability to follow content in addition to following people.

Let me give you an example (because I can already tell I’m not doing  a good job of explaining myself).  We all have our networks on Facebook and Twitter.  And we are probably following the people that aren’t family for a specific reason.  Maybe it’s for their social media knowledge, or because they are industry sources, whatever.  But come next year, a big portion of your network (at least those in the United States) will probably engage in discussing the same topic: Politics.  And if you are following a few dozen ‘A-listers’ for advice and wisdom on social media, it can be a jolt to see them suddenly on Facebook and Twitter every day saying that they think your favorite Presidential candidate is a blithering idiot.

So then comes the question: How do you handle this?  You are following a person because you want to hear their opinions on social media, not politics.  Do you unfollow them?  Do you grit your teeth and bear it?  Do you argue with them?  I do the same thing: Last fall, on Saturdays I started tweeting score updates from the 1 or 2 college football games I was watching.  Then I had friends tweeting me asking for the score to a particular game, and the next thing you know, I am all but live-tweeting about 5 different games at the same time.  Some of my followers absolutely loved it, and some of them unfollowed me because they weren’t following me for college football updates, they were likely following me for social media discussions.

The shortcoming I see from existing social media tools is that there’s no efficient way to filter based on content created.  Sure, you can create groups or lists of like minded individuals, but even that doesn’t guarantee that ‘unwanted’ content won’t be discussed.  And if you could filter someone based on content, would you even want to?  Is this a viable concern, or is it maybe an unintentional byproduct of following a lot of people that we really don’t know?

What do you think the solution is?  Do you unfriend/follow people that discuss topics that don’t interest you?  If you had the ability to filter their content based on type, would you?

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The secret to creating brand advocates

It’s not about having a transactional relationship with your customers, it’s about having an emotional one with your fans.

Thoughts?

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Think Like a Rockstar: Create something amazing for the people that love you

So I was on Twitter late Friday night, and I saw this tweet from @AmandaPalmer.  It got my interest, so I did some checking.  I found dozens of tweets from Amanda’s fans either gushing about her and thanking her for letting them attend the secret show, or those that were angry that they missed it.

From Amanda’s blog, here’s how the secret show was set up:

p.s. for those of you who were waiting on more info about the SECRET-BOSTON-AREA-SHOW next saturday, we put together a little contest. if you wanna come, we’re picking about 50 lucky people who’re gonna join in on our crazy little loft party in arlington, and it’s your LAST CHANCE TO ENTER. get in on this shizzle NOW:

* head over to my profile on GetGlue. you can find it right here:http://getglue.com/recording_artists/amanda_palmer
– don’t have a GetGlue profile, yet? it takes about 20 seconds and you can do so athttp://getglue.com/signup (they also have an app for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, Blackberry, and Android – you can sign up on those, too)
* “Check-in” and tell us your favorite AFP-related concert memory, starting with something along the lines of I really want to see Amanda on tour this summer http://bit.ly/AFPtour or My favorite AFP-concert memory was…
– feel free to get creative about how you say that you wanna come, just make sure to include a link to the tour page
– if you haven’t ever seen me or the dolls or evelyn evelyn live, post a link to your favorite live YouTube or Vimeo clip and tell us why you’re excited to (hopefully) come
– bonus points for cross-posting to Twitter and Facebook, and for clicking “Favorite” on AFP (and other AFP-related stuff like The Dolls, Evelyn Evelyn, 8in8, etc)

and that’s it. any questions? post HERE and sean’ll get back to you, asap. we’ll be going through and contacting winners throughout tonight and tomorrow, getting e-mail addresses so that we can get your name for the guestlist, and know where to tell you the location of the show.

 

So Amanda created a free show for her biggest fans, with the requirement for getting in being that her biggest fans would have to share why they loved Amanda.  Which is something they were already doing anyway.  The lucky fans that got to attend were then treated to an amazing show, and they now love Amanda even more.  The fans that didn’t make the show are now extremely jealous of the ones that did, but still love Amanda for going out of her way to connect with her fans.

Attention big companies: You usually make this ‘marketing’ stuff a lot harder than it has to be.

I will once again go back to that wonderful quote from Steve Knox:

Think about what Amanda did here.  She didn’t use social media as a channel to generate sales, or connect with new customers.  She used social media to embrace her biggest fans, and give them a reason to love her even more.  Totally flies in the face of what most companies try to do, which is generate sales from new customers.  Instead, Amanda said she was going to create something totally amazing that customers want, but she not only wasn’t going to charge for it, she was going to give it to her existing customers.

This is why we don’t call these people ‘Amanda’s customers’, we call them ‘Amanda’s fans‘.  The next time Amanda has a paying gig, her fans that attended this show will be even more likely to pay to attend (because they love Amanda even more now) and they will be more likely to encourage their friends to come with them (because they want their friends to love Amanda like they do).  Amanda has created a way to embrace her biggest fans, and to let them do her ‘marketing’ for her.

Why is it that companies can’t get this?

To be fair, some companies are trying.  Ford recently had an event where they flew in influential bloggers to spend a day with them.  The focus was on Ford and its products, but there was also live entertainment and interesting speakers such as Malcolm Gladwell.  That’s definitely not the same as Amanda’s secret show, I think the focus with Forward with Ford was ‘how can we show you what we are doing and get you to like us more?’ while the focus with Amanda’s show was ‘how can I show you how much I love you?’

Which is a big reason why I think rockstars have fans, and companies have customers.  Because most companies view the relationship with their customers as being transactional, while most rockstars view the relationship with their fans as being emotional.

Companies, if you want to be successful, follow Amanda’s approach: Find a way to connect with your biggest advocates, and delight them.  Don’t worry about selling anything to them, create something amazing for them, and then watch as they take the initiative and promote you and maybe even gush about you to their friends and networks.  The end result is that you’ll get those sales you wanted to begin with, but the added bonus will be that you’ll also create a way to excite and delight your biggest advocates in the process.

Again, y’all make this ‘marketing’ stuff a lot harder than it has to be.